


The Sweetest Poison

by AvoidingAverage



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Jaskier, First Kiss, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier can be badass too, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Mild torture, Mutual Pining, That's right, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22250221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvoidingAverage/pseuds/AvoidingAverage
Summary: “And what do you want in return?  Your freedom? Your safety?”Jaskier didn’t flinch from her scorn and Geralt could see his knuckles go white with the force of his grip around the small vial.  “Save him.”The mage stared at him for a beat before letting out a burst of laughter that echoed off the wall like the flutter of vultures wings.  “All this trouble for the Witcher?” she asked incredulously, “Tell me, boy, do you really think he would do the same for you? That he cares at all what happens to the bard who follows after him like a lost puppy?”  She stepped forward, confident as a soldier preparing his death blow. “Oh, I know who you are, bard. I watched you trailing after the Witcher, eager for every scrap of affection or interest he’ll toss your way. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”Jaskier was breathing heavily now, jaw clenched tight enough that Geralt could see the muscles fluttering with effort.“Were you hoping this ill-conceived rescue mission would be enough to make him finally notice you?” she murmured with a mocking smile, “Poor little bard--always singing of love but never truly experiencing it.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 141
Kudos: 7057
Collections: GERALT AND JASKIER ARE FUCKING GAY





	The Sweetest Poison

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into The Witcher fandom so I hope you'll excuse any mistakes you may find along the way. I've just finished the series on Netflix and was feeling like a good ol' fashioned whump was necessary to resolve some of my feelings.
> 
> Enjoy.

Pain was something Geralt of Rivia was familiar with. 

He knew the pain of being unwanted by first his mother and then the rest of the world. He knew the distinct agony of knowing the woman he loved—or as much as a Witcher could love—walked away and rejected him. He could recount the white hot blaze of sliced muscle and skin against the dull throb of broken bones. Of failed campaigns and too slow messengers asking for aid against monsters of myth and legend. 

But this, this was another thing entirely. 

He opened his eyes with a soft grunt that did nothing to mitigate the tightness in his chest left behind by hours of hanging from the rafters of the cell he’d been tossed into. As tall as he was, his feet still barely touched the floor which forced him to stand on tiptoe or allow all his weight to hang from his aching shoulders and arms. Whatever armor that had survived the ambush had long been stripped away to make it easier for his tormentors to color his skin in shades of black and mottled blue. The scent of his blood was bright iron against the stench of unwashed skin and the misery of all the poor souls who’d inhabited this room before him. 

Quietly, Geralt bore through the painful pulse of his heartbeat thumping sluggishly in his chest and tried not to hate it for its dogged determination to keep him alive. Around him, the room still lingered with crackling energy that his body recognized even if his mind was slow to piece together the fragments of memories that led him to this new pit of hell. 

“Right,” he rumbled as he spat old blood onto the ruined stone floor, “mages.”

Specifically,  _ a  _ mage aided by a significant number of well trained mercenaries. Well trained enough to ambush him as he rode into the edges of Novigrad and keep him drugged with enough potions to keep him dazed and compliant while they moved him to these holding cells. 

From there it was a haze of relatively impersonal beatings and casual attempts at questioning—all without revealing what they truly wanted from him. 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

He doubted they even cared much about his growled curses or promises for vengeance. The attack and the questioning had all the hallmarks of a group uninterested in anything but the payout they’d receive when they delivered him to whoever hired them. 

_ If  _ they were able to deliver him, that is. 

Sighing through his nose, he tilted his head up to eye the chains connected to a series of hooks on the ceiling with a critical eye. Fuck. Clearly they were expecting him. That made this even more complicated. The only good news he had was that Jaskier was safely away from this mess—no doubt flirting his way into some noblewoman’s household. 

Outside the simple wooden door, he could hear the sounds of the mercenaries guarding him laughing and talking as they are their evening meal. His stomach grumbled a protest, but he ignored it. He’d been hungry before and would be again so long as he got out of this cell before someone wised up enough to realize it was safer to sink a blade in his gut than keep an angry Witcher around. 

Before he could consider how he could get out of the thick iron manacles on his wrists, ankles and neck, the sounds of talking outside abruptly magnified as the door opened to reveal a tall, splindly woman in the dark robes of a witch no longer affiliated with Aretuza. Dark, wide set eyes stared at him balefully with a face already beginning to show its age and unaided by the graying hair at her temples. One hand moved oddly at her side as though it was too weak to respond to her commands. If he had to guess based on her narrow features and too large nose, he doubted she’d remained in training long enough to Ascend. Her body had none of the perfectly curated curves and features of Yennefer’s form. 

Which made it even more annoying that she’s gotten the drop on him. 

“You’re awake,” she said in a slightly accented voice that was surprisingly high pitched for such a dour looking person. “I was beginning to wonder if I’d used too much of the paralytic.”

Geralt tilted his head to the side, a feral smile twisting his lips. “Why don’t you step closer and see for yourself?”

Her answering smile was equally unamused. “I have no intention of aiding you in whatever idiotic escape plan you’ve been concocting in here. I am not a fool.”

“That’s debatable,” he replied, “But since you are here, why don’t you explain to me why the fuck you think you’re going to be walking away from this without a new hole in your neck?”

“My employer assures me that the only person who will be suffering from painful new additions to their vital organs will be you, Geralt of Rivia.”

“And just who is your employer, mage?”

“Baron Ryker of Aedirn.”

Geralt frowned, trying and failing to remember how he’d attracted the ire of some prissy noble. Some of his confusion must have shown on his face because the mage took a step closer and continued. 

“You were hired by my employer to capture and kill a foul creature who was preying on the people of his lands. A succubus. Instead, you took his money and fled in the night while the creature still drew breath.”

Abruptly, the name and mention of the creature pulled free the memory of the two days he’d spent on the Baron’s land trailing a succubus he’d claimed was preying on his tenants. Of the haunted look in the creature’s eyes when he’d cornered her in an empty hayloft. Of the bruises and cuts marring her arms to match the outline of the collar at her neck. 

“The Baron lied to you then,” Geralt bit out as his temper flared at the reminder, “He didn’t want me to kill the succubus—he wanted me to enslave her so he could keep torturing her for pleasure.”

Just the thought of the way the creature had shuddered her way through the account of her weeks trapped within the Baron’s house as a slave to her nature and his specially crafted cells made Geralt want to curse. Allowing the Baron to live had been a mercy he did not intend to allow again. 

“What the man does with mindless beasts is not my concern,” the mage said airily. 

Geralt gritted his teeth. “She was not a beast. The only monster in that land was the man who hired you.”

The mage shrugged one thin shoulder in a dismissive gesture. “His morals are of no interest to me, Witcher. I only care for his coin.”

“That coin will not save you from my blade.”

She watched him for a beat, tracing over the wounds and bruises marking his exposed chest with a sick sort of pleasure. The knife she pulled free from the folds of her cloak was as sharp as the smile creasing her face. This close, he could already smell the sickly sweet scent of poison along its edge. Gently, she let it trail across his collarbone and down his chest, raising a fine line of blood.

“So fierce, even after all this pain,” she crooned. “I wonder how long it will take before you begin to beg.”

“Better women than you have tried.”

She smiled and the blade bite into the muscle of his pectoral until it was twitching helplessly. Before the blood could drip down the planes of his stomach, she reached out and ran her finger through the dark mixture, letting her nails drag over the cut until it burned. Licking off the tips of her fingers, she made a low sound of pleasure while he growled at her. “Oh Witcher, I’m going to enjoy this.”

* * *

  
  


He lost time. 

Even with his age and enhancements, there was only so much pain the body could take before it began to shut down. His head felt blurry and stuffed with cotton from the mixture of exhaustion and the agony throbbing through every inch of his skin. Each time he began to slip into the cool dark of unconsciousness, the mage would drag him back to the surface with a crackle of healing magic. 

The shadows dancing around the torch she’d lit somewhere between the second or third time he’d passed out were beginning to resemble the beasts in his nightmare. They taunted him with cruel laughter and the rake of claws along his skin, rippling and flickering in and out of his vision. He suspected it had something to do with the potions that were forced down his throat occasionally with the aid of a burly soldier. There was little he could do besides hang there and wait for the moment when they let their guards down enough for him to break free.

Sometimes--when his fever worsened--he saw Jaskier standing just beside the mage, his blue eyes unnaturally cruel in the firelight. Each time Geralt found himself reaching for him, twitching and heaving helplessly against his chains in an attempt to warn the bard away. It was almost a relief when the hallucination left him alone again. At least then he knew Jaskier was far away from this hellhole. Even if it did mean a return to the dull agony of his torture and the growing sense of despair clinging to him. 

Geralt knew pain just as he did loneliness. 

The mage paused mid-stroke when the sound of a knock at the outside door cut through the noise of rowdy mercenaries. There was the sound of a few curious voices before the door opened and silence fell through the room. She frowned, looking annoyed at the interruption.

“Stay put, Witcher. I’ll be back soon.”

Geralt didn’t bother to respond, too busy trying to sort through his injuries and the hallucinations to bother with thinking about the reason for the respite. He knew how stories like this ended. If he didn’t escape quickly, his chances of ever making it out of here would be nonexistent. His strength was already waning. He couldn’t let the mage get her hands on him again. The chains rattled weakly against his abraded skin and he growled in frustration when they continued to bind him in place. He glared up at the hooks in the ceiling as though he could wish them into loosening for him. 

Light flooded into the room once again and Geralt felt his stomach lurch when the mage stepped through once more. Not for the first time, he was grateful that he no longer felt the emotions of a normal human. The fear and panic felt far away.

_ Fuck _ , he was tired.

The urge to sleep was overwhelming. His eyes drooped while his head tried to fall forward to allow his neck to rest. He shook himself roughly, trying to force himself upright through willpower alone. Sleeping now could mean death later. If the Baron arrived with reinforcements, the limited amount of chance he had to escape would disappear. 

Jaskier would never forgive him if he died in such a boring way. 

_ No one cares about heroes who die of old age, Geralt,  _ his mind hazily recited from a memory of weeks before they’d parted ways. _ They want to see heroes making their final stand against insurmountable odds or going down in a blaze of glory. Why, if my audience knew how many great knights ended their days shitting themselves into oblivion, I’d be out of a job! _

So Geralt had to stay alive long enough to kill the mage and her followers so Jaskier could get at least one more song out of him.    
  
You’ll die soon either way, the cruelly practical voice in his mind whispered. Too much blood loss. Without a healer, you’re done for.

He always imagined his death would be in the dark under the weight of some beast he’d been sent to hunt. Perhaps on some battlefield after he got involved in yet another scheme he should have avoided. Somehow, bleeding out in a cell with a mage he didn’t know watching him suffer until she delivered him to the bastard he should have killed months ago. It felt almost...anti climatic to die in such a idiotic way. Perhaps that was all death was--a final foolish moment before you slipped away into the dark.

The sound of a proud, overly dramatic voice drifted in through the wooden cell door and Geralt froze.

Oh fuck, he knew that voice.

Whatever bullshit Jaskier was attempting to pitch to the mercenaries outside had the men speaking sharply, cutting into his rambling diatribe. The little idiot never had managed to figure out how to get out of half the trouble he seemed to attract. How he’d managed to survive this long was a mystery to Geralt.

What the fuck he was doing in this house was another.

Outside the room, there was a sharp cry of alarm and the sound of a scuffle. Geralt jerked against his chains, all of his exhaustion disappearing under the roar of his growing panic. If Jaskier somehow got caught up in this, there was no way the mage or the mercenaries would allow him to walk away from this place alive. Geralt needed to get out there before the soldiers realized that he wasn’t some random bard. 

Yanking at the cuffs around his wrists, Geralt ignored the blood trickling down his arms and the way his heartbeat was thundering in his ears. All he could think about was the way Jaskier had gasped out his name that day with the djinn. The panic in his wide eyes as blood pooled around his throat and he gasped for air. 

He couldn’t remember the last thing he’d said to him.

Had it been another ill-tempered and ill-considered jab at his skills?

Geralt was so used to the constant rambling monologues of the man who staunchly refused to take any of the Witcher’s growling to heart that he often forgot the bard was not immune to the world around him. He could remember the pain in his expression when Geralt insulted his singing. The way he looked in the quiet moments between performances when people jeered and mocked and moved around him like he was some rock in an ever moving stream. It took Geralt time to realize that despite all of Jaskier’s flash and good humor that he was breakable beneath.

It took even longer to realize Geralt did not want to be the reason Jaskier lost his smile.

Caring for the bard had come as a surprise. The few emotions he felt as a Witcher seemed to be dedicated to the rapid push and pull between annoyance at Jaskier’s mindless chatter and a violent need to protect the man from anyone who might harm him. The man had grown on him--like a mold or a cancer, sure, but grown on him all the same. It was part of the reason why he had sent Jaskier on his way to the larger city in search of more patrons. Having Jaskier at his side when he was hunting was...a distraction. One he couldn’t afford to analyze too closely.

Now, he could feel his lungs sucking in as much air as they could to weather the panic flooding him. Each breath whistled sharply against the broken ribs on his side and he could taste the sharp iron of blood bubbling in his mouth. He could feel his muscles protesting against each jerk of the chains, but he ignored them in favor of straining his ears to listen to the noises of fighting on the other side of the door. The pain doesn’t matter if it means he’ll be able to reach Jaskier before they slit his stupid, brave throat.

He understood then why Witchers were made to be free of emotion. There was nothing but his training at Kaer Morhen to keep him from bellowing a warning to Jaskier and hurling himself after him. As it was, he felt the burn of his human heritage more strongly than he could remember since his childhood. All his mind seemed capable of doing was straining all his senses toward the room outside for any sign of Jaskier’s survival. There was a scrape of a wooden chair against the stone floor and a sharp, eerily familiar scent in the air that made Geralt’s head spin dangerously.

Jaskier wasn’t speaking anymore.

The thought that the bard’s silence would cause such dread would have been preposterous just a few days before. Jaskier was only silent if he was eating, sleeping, or when he was threatened within an inch of his life. The quiet seeping into the stone felt like a funeral dirge.

“Jaskier?” he rasped, voice raw with the screams and sounds of pain he’d bitten back.

The only reply was the sound of his own jagged breathing.

Geralt growled in frustration, jerking his hands until the metal above him shrieked. He needed to get the fuck out of these  _ chains-- _

The heavy wooden door made a rough sound that he was all too familiar with after days of the mage’s visits. He froze instinctively, body trained now to expect pain, but instead he found himself staring into wide blue eyes surrounded by a mop of tousled brown hair. The relief was enough to make him sag bonelessly against his restraints, grateful that they could keep him upright. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt breathed, eyes fixed on him like he would disappear if he looked away.

The bard glanced behind him briefly before hurrying into the room, hands fluttering like bird’s wings as he took in the battered state of the Witcher’s body. “Gods, Geralt--what have they done to you?”

Geralt didn’t respond, too busy trying not to gasp out his relief when familiar fingers trailed over the curve of his cheek. His eyes fluttered wearily in the wake of such comfort after being in pain for so long. He couldn’t say when he’d started to enjoy Jaskier’s easy affections, but he was weak against it now.

“--should have dosed them with something stronger. If I’d known they’d done this, Witcher, I’d--well I don’t know what I’d do, but it would be painful.” Jaskier continued rambling dire imprecations of his captors’ characters while he examined the chains around Geralt’s wrists and ankles. He plucked at the metal until the cuff around Geralt’s right leg went loose and he could breathe a sigh of relief at the release of pressure. “I leave you alone for two weeks and look at what they did to you, hmm?” He was practically crooning now to the nearly unconscious Witcher, “You’re lucky I saw them hauling Roach through the gates. I knew you’d never let someone take Roach without a fight.”

The Witcher licker his lips, trying to string his thoughts together into a coherent question. “...how?”

Jaskier seemed to understand what Geralt was getting at because he nodded reassuringly. “I had to wait until most of the mercenaries left for whoever bought them out before I could come get. Gods, I’m so sorry that Geralt. I had no idea if you were even alive or how they were holding you here. Once I realized you weren’t able to get out on your own, I tossed a packet of nightshade down the chimney and waited to smoke them out.”

The thought of what could have happened if Jaskier had breathed in any of the deadly smoke made Geralt flinch violently in Jaskier’s grasp, nearly falling when the bard removed one of the chains on his arms. He sagged heavily against the smaller man, helpless to resist the pull of gravity without a brace. Jaskier grunted at the added weight but didn’t complain. 

“Need to get you out of these before you go to sleep, Witcher.”

Geralt tried to lift himself onto his feet, but his mind felt like it was spinning, senses far too muddled to make sense. He huffed out a passable agreement. 

“Almost there, Geralt,” Jaskier said with effort as he unhooked the last chain and Geralt nearly fell forward, “I’m going to get you out of here, don’t you worry. Everything’s going to be alright. I’ve got you.”

A droll, painfully familiar voice interrupted Jaskier’s soothing ramblings from the doorway. 

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Both men jerked in surprise at the sight of the mage standing casually at the door. Geralt shifted weakly, trying to place his body between Jaskier and the mage. Jaskier cursed softly behind him and tried to move past the solid wall of muscle and Witcher. 

The woman’s lips twitched in a faint smile that never reached her eyes. “I have to admit, I’m impressed,” she continued, “I never expected anyone to care about a Witcher, let alone the Butcher of Blaviken. Perhaps I underestimated you, Geralt.”

“ _ Don’t talk to him like that _ !” Jaskier hissed despite the way Geralt continued to try to silence him.

“Quiet,” Geralt whispered jaggedly to him, terrified at what could happen to him while he was too weak to defend the bard. Already his head was throbbing painfully and his body was throbbing in an agony that could only lead to collapse. 

He had to keep Jaskier away from her. He had to keep him safe.

Geralt’s eyes darted to the open doorway beyond the mage where he guessed his weapons might be stored and tried to gather his strength for one last charge. If the mage was dead, Jaskier would be safe and Geralt could go into the otherworld without regrets. Or, at least, he could die knowing his death would be worth something.

Jaskier’s hand clutched tighter around Geralt’s bicep when the mage took a step closer, her breath wheezing oddly in the quiet. The bard edged a little closer, looking surprised. “You breathed in the poison too,” he said with a grin. “You’re dying.”

The woman scowled, “I’ll admit I didn’t expect such a clever attack, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll go to my grave knowing the Witcher will go before me.”

She raised her hand in a gesture that sent Geralt to his knees, groaning in agony when his wounds seemed to pulse white-hot. Jaskier made a rough sound of denial, looking torn between rushing the mage and trying to help Geralt. The Witcher let himself lean forward on his wounded hands as he gasped for air to breathe through the pain. His arms shook with effort, making his plans to attack seem useless.

Another wave of visceral pain had Geralt’s eyes blacking out in a wave that brought nausea pooling in his throat. He dry heaved, barely hearing Jaskier’s curses over the roar of his own heartbeat. Blood pooled in his mouth, dripping in dark streaks that stank of rot and ruin and dark magic. Whatever the mage had been pumping into him to keep him weak enough to be bound was running its course, wreaking havoc as it went.

“Fuck,” he spat and wiped feebly at the streaks of red at his mouth.

“I can save you.”

Geralt looked up at the sound of Jaskier’s determined voice, ready to warn him that it was already too late for that, when he realized that the statement wasn’t directed at him.

Jaskier stood, hands reaching into his gaudy green doublet to pull free a small vial Geralt recognized from his own pack. “I brought an antidote in case Geralt was in the room when I released the poison. It’s not too late to save you.”

The mage’s dark eyes fixed on the bottle with near fanatic focus. She licked her lips. “What’s to stop me from just taking it from you?”

“I’ll break it and enjoy watching you die.”

Geralt had never heard the flat, vicious tone of voice from the bard before. It matched the furious glint in his expressive eyes and the way his body remained cowled like a bowstring prepared to loose its arrow. 

She sniffed in annoyance. “And what do you want in return? Your freedom? Your safety?”

Jaskier didn’t flinch from her scorn and Geralt could see his knuckles go white with the force of his grip around the small vial. “Save him.”

The mage stared at him for a beat before letting out a burst of laughter that echoed off the wall like the flutter of vultures wings. “All this trouble for the Witcher?” she asked incredulously, “Tell me, boy, do you really think he would do the same for you? That he cares at all what happens to the bard who follows after him like a lost puppy?” She stepped forward, confident as a soldier preparing his death blow. “Oh, I know who you are, bard. I watched you trailing after the Witcher, eager for every scrap of affection or interest he’ll toss your way. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

Jaskier was breathing heavily now, jaw clenched tight enough that Geralt could see the muscles fluttering with effort.

“Were you hoping this ill-conceived rescue mission would be enough to make him finally notice you?” she murmured with a mocking smile, “Poor little bard--always singing of love but never truly experiencing it.”

“Heal him and I’ll give you the antidote,” Jaskier cut in, his voice rough with some complicated emotion. He carefully did not look at where Geralt was kneeling at his feet. “My reasons will remain my own.”

She considered him for a long moment before she shrugged. “Swear it then, bard. The antidote for the Witcher’s healing.”

Jaskier didn’t hesitate. “I swear it. As soon as he is safe, I’ll give you the vial.”

Her smile was cold as steel and Geralt opened his mouth to beg Jaskier to flee, but her hands were already flicking in his direction.

Geralt slammed into the ground as his spine bowed under the force of all the muscles in his body seizing uncontrollably. His mouth opened in a silent scream that turned into a howl as the blood in his veins seemed to roil beneath his skin, searing along each cut and bruise. He thrashed violently, the cold stone floor a useless brace against the wildfire moving through his cells and carving into his bones. Distantly he could hear Jaskier shouting, feel hands grasping at him, but all his mind seemed capable of was producing animalistic cries of pain.

It lasted for hours. Decades. Eons.

The magic ate away at him, reforging his injuries with a blunt force that left him twitching and spasming helplessly on the floor. Every drop of his strength felt wrung dry at the cost of the power needed to drag him back from the edge of death. Each breath felt like a battle, each heartbeat a tiny skirmish in the war against his own mortality. He opened his eyes and sucked in a fortifying breath. Then another.

Gentle fingers cradled his head against lean muscle and he realized with a start that he was laying half-draped across Jaskier’s lap. The bard’s eyes were red and dripping with tears that had him looking paler and frail than Geralt had ever seen him. His lips moved in a complicated pattern that Geralt could understand until the thunder of his heart beat quieted and he released a bit of the tension in his body in relief.

“Oh please be okay. Please please, Geralt. You can’t leave me like this. You can’t go yet. We haven’t--we haven’t finished the Ballad of the Endless Death yet,” he begged in a voice approaching a sob, “I know you said the second verse was pretentious but I’ve been working on it and I really think it could be a hit. Then people will finally realize how good you are, Geralt. They’ll--they’ll finally treat you like you deserve, but you have to stay alive. You just--you have too,  _ please _ .  _ Please don’t leave me. _ ”

The desperation in the bard’s voice was enough to drag Geralt away from the temptation of sleep. He blinked up at him slowly, watching the other man’s eyes flit over his face like he was memorizing the features. With an effort, Geralt forced his raw throat to speak.

“Not...going anywhere...without you.” 

Jaskier’s lips stretched into a tremulous smile and Geralt felt the gentle splash of tears on his cheeks. He lifted Geralt’s hand to his lips and pressed a shaky kiss against his palm, holding it against his cheek.

“Well isn’t that just precious,” the mage sneered, “Truly, I underestimated your appeal, Witcher. But I grow tired of waiting--give me what was promised, bard.”

Jaskier leaned away from Geralt after a beat, jaw clenching as he turned his attention to the mage. Geralt tugged at his tunic in a weak protest, but Jaskier ignored him in favor of getting to his feet and bringing out the vial. He presented it to her with a tiny flourish that felt out of place in the barren cell.

“The antidote, as we agreed.”

Eagerly, the woman snatched the vial away from him and drained the contents. Almost immediately, her eyes fluttered shut as she breathed a sigh of relief. Color returned to her sallow cheeks with each breath and it was obvious that his antidote was already taking effect. 

She smiled and Geralt felt the cracking power of her magic blooming to life. Her eyes narrowed on him as he struggled to get to his feet before she could attack. “I think I’ll let you live long enough to watch you pathetic human die, Witcher, before I finish what I started.”

“Wait, no--” Jaskier began, but she gestured to him imperiously and he was slung bodily across the room.

Geralt was on his feet and moving toward her before his mind could even process the choice. A feral snarl ripped free from his chest and he moved forward with fury emboldening each step. Each movement was more beast than man, every inch of him vibrating in unholy rage. That he was unarmed and injured was meaningless in the wake of the way she’d threatened--the way she’d  _ hurt- _ -Jaskier in front of him. 

His forward momentum stopped abruptly when she lifted her hands once more and he slammed into a wall of blistering magic. He roared and thrashed against it, ready to fight his way forward through sheer willpower if need be. She grunted, sweat shining on her skin as she braced her shield and doubled down on her attack. Geralt felt a line of pain bloom along his cheek as magic sliced into him like a whip. 

“I’m going to enjoy watching you suffer, Witcher,” she hissed. “I’ll make you beg for me to kill him by the time I’m done making him scream. You’ll beg me for and thank me for the mercy of slitting his worthless, talentless--”

Her words cut off in a wet gurgle that matched oddly with the look of shock on her features. 

The shield holding Geralt in place dropped abruptly and he stumbled forward gracelessly. The mage’s hands scrabbled at her back as though trying to reach something unseen before she fell to her knees on the stone floor and collapsed in a boneless heap. 

Geralt stared in shock at the long knife handle standing proudly nestled between the third and fourth rib. Slowly, he looked up to where Jaskier was gaping at her. His blue eyes looked too large for his pale face and already Geralt could see the way his hands were shaking at his side. Then the bard took a deep breath, resettling into a new reality where he was a man capable of murdering another. 

“Jaskier?” Geralt rasped.

With a soft sound of relief, Jaskier crossed the room in two large strides and nearly threw himself into Geralt’s arms. It was easy as breathing to wrap himself around the smaller man and draw him closer until even the rhythm of their breathing was in unison. They sank to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs as Geralt’s strength faltered, but neither moved away from the other. The fine tremors wracking the bard’s body slowly evolved into quiet sobs that Geralt soothed away with a hand stroking over the length of his spine. 

When Jaskier finally fell silent and still, Geralt leaned back enough so he could frown down at the smaller man. “That was incredibly stupid.”

He blinked and his mouth twitched a little.

Geralt glowered at him, trying to cover up the lingering traces of helpless panic with his usual bad temper. “Don’t  _ ever _ do that again.”

Jaskier’s grin was impish and chased away some of the shadows lingering in his eyes. “Or what, Witcher?”

Helpless against the impish curve of his lip, Geralt leaned forward in a move he’d fantasized countless times. He swallowed the sound of Jaskier’s soft sigh of pleasure, bringing his hand up to tilt the other man’s jaw so their mouths slanted together just so. It held none of the violence and danger of his profession, just the soft wonder and fragile emotion that had bloomed and taken root over the months of traveling together.

When he pulled back, they were both breathless, eyes inky black with desire. Geralt moved forward to brush a kiss to the corner of Jaskier’s mouth and to press their foreheads together with quiet intimacy. He sighed softly, “You’re going to be the death of me, bard.”

Jaskier’s laughter was sunlight after an endless night. 

“Not if I have anything to say about it, Witcher.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this angsty little story of mine. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! Based on feedback I may decide to continue writing a multi-chapter romance between our favorite Witcher and his Bard.


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